Wii U and 3DS: A Question of Storage

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Will SD cards and optional external hard drives be enough?

By Richard George

Last night Nintendo strongly signaled its intent to push both its portable and home console efforts into the modern era. Starting this August with New Super Mario Bros. 2 for the Nintendo 3DS, and beginning with the launch of Wii U, the company intends to make all of its self-published retail titles available in both a packaged and digital format, able to be downloaded through Nintendo's eShop as well as purchased as a code in a retail store.

Though this move allows the 3DS to operate on more of an even distribution field with rival portable gaming devices like the Vita, it signals a new era for home consoles. No publisher currently offers digital software on consoles day-and-date with their retail, packaged counterparts. At the moment, Nintendo is breaking new ground.

Yet all that digital content begs one specific question - just where are you supposed to put all that stuff?

Though Nintendo has a variety of questions to answer, including whether third parties will participate and how gamers can recover their purchases, the looming issue is where these digital titles are supposed to be stored. The current answer appears to be SD cards, or in the case of Wii U, an external hard drive, which at the moment doesn't seem poised to come with the console.

We decided to do a little digging, pulling data for a variety of games, just to do some comparisons. Data for Xbox titles was acquired through Microsoft's Xbox.com. Information regarding Wii and the Nintendo 3DS was actually dug up by the folks at Nintendo Gamer, who did a little trickery to research Nintendo's game file sizes.

What we found was revealing.

Nintendo 3DS's owners by and large shouldn't have anything to worry about. The 3DS comes with a 2GB SD card, and for the most part, it would take 2-3 games to truly push that limit. More importantly, the 3DS can support SDHC cards of up to 32 GBs (the highest we've tested at the office), which would store nearly 10 copies of Resident Evil Revelations, the largest 3DS game to-date.

Moving on to Wii U, we looked at two cases - smaller games more in line with Wii data and modern, larger games similar to what is published for Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3. First, Wii games.

Talk about a vast range. Wii titles can approach 7 GB but can actually be smaller than 3DS games. Given these very manageable sizes, we wouldn't be surprised to see GameCube or Wii titles quickly arrive in the eShop. However Nintendo's plans don't just encompass past releases, but current ones as well. Taking a look at modern Xbox 360 titles changes the situation considerably.

Suddenly a 32 GB SDHC card doesn't seem as adequate. Though a handful of games would still fit on a SDHC card, it's clear that unless Nintendo expects gamers to only own 4-5 games, it needs to provide a hard drive solution. The publisher has already announced support for an external drive, connected via relatively slow USB 2.0 cables, but that hardly seems ideal considering consumers will be asked to purchase what would almost surely be an optional piece of hardware.

The 3DS seems to be in good shape, and downloading legacy content to Wii U won't be a problem for most. But if Nintendo is planning on fully embracing its day-and-date program, and not risking the wrath of its customers, it needs a better, more thorough idea of how to provide storage for its digitally distributed games. Perhaps it's time for Wii U to get an internal hard drive.

Rich is an Executive Editor of IGN.com and the leader of the IGN Nintendo team. Follow IGN on Twitter, and keep track of Rich's ridiculous adventures through MyIGN and Twitter. Keep it cool, Koopalings.